Dear Interested Reader,
Pro-Anglers host fishing tournament. Volunteer program "Kids of Iraq" collects toys and clothing. Extraordinary new technology to keep our troops safe. Army Corps of Engrs focus on future. Hundreds graduate from Warfighter Training Course. IA's GTR conducts first port to depot mission. Iraqi Engrs. work closely with National Guard Engrs. TF Troy disposes of thousands of pounds of explosives. In Afghanistan, we join Special Purpose Marine Air Ground TF as they participate with Afghan NA in a tribal engagement in Southern Afghanistan.
Joanna
___________________________
March 16, 2009
Multi-National Corps - Iraq
Public Affairs Office, Camp Victory
APO AE 09342
Pro Anglers Visit Troops, Host Fishing Tournament in Baghdad Canals
Eric Maninno, professional angler, looks his catch in the eye after battling to reel him in through a patch of reeds in one of the canals during Op Catch Fish.
(Photo and story by Spc. Eric Glassey)
CAMP SLAYER — Servicemembers and civilian employees gathered here at Slayer Lake, in the shadow of Victory over Iran Palace, to try and reel in the big one during the second annual Op Catch Fish competition, March 7.
Professional anglers Sondra Rankin, Eric Maninno and Joe Mercurio were on hand to host the event. Rankin is a country music singer as well as the star in her own TV series, “Turn up the Bass.” Maninno hosts his own show as well as being co-host of Op Catch Fish with Mercurio.
Servicemembers enjoyed a few hours off from their normal work to enjoy a fun and relaxing day of fishing. “It's nice to get out of the office and relax,” said MSgt. Betty Rupp, who won second place in the female div. with a catch of 3 lb., 15 oz.
Gifts were handed out to all the participants while the top winners received special prizes like fishing reels and watches. Jason Sparkman, the first place male winner, won a TV for his fish weighing in at more than 13 lbs.
Taking first place in the woman’s div. was Pfc. Ariadna Lee, with a catch weighing in at nearly 5 lbs. She was awarded a watch and a bag full of various fishing lures and hooks.
“I love it [Op Catch Fish],” Rankin said. “We are giving the troops an opportunity to get a day off and win a few prizes.”
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Volunteer Program Helps Iraqi Children, Boosts Community Relations
By SSgt. Dilia Ayala
More than 70 volunteers sort through toys and children's clothes before packing them up for distribution, March 11, as part of a Kids of Iraq (KoI) project.
JOINT BASE BALAD — Started in 2008, KoI is a non-profit org dedicated to improving the lives of Iraqi children by fulfilling their basic needs and providing for a brighter future. “Today, we are separating and boxing up supplies and toys to give to Iraqi children and their families out in the community, to help further community relations with the Iraqi nation,” said Senior MSgt. Richard Barbee, with 332nd Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Sqdrn. “We are here to help them become a sovereign nation,” continued Barbee, “so it’s important that we're able to provide items like these to show them that it’s not just about fighting a war, it’s about building relationships in the community.”
Capt. M. David Haltom, 732nd Air Expeditionary Group chaplain and KoI coordinator, agreed. “Each donation helps to strengthen the bond between American troops and Iraqis, which reinforces a long-term relationship with the country and its people,” said the chaplain, who’s deployed here from Hill AF Base, Utah. “It’s not just going to bless these children and their families; it's being strategically used to further our mission to better this country. “I didn’t start KoI; it was started a year ago by Marcy Hoffman,” continued the chaplain. “When I got here, there was no one running the program, so I stepped up and started coordinating the base-wide effort to collect the items that are here, not soliciting any new items. I’m in a unique position as the 732nd Air Expeditionary Group chaplain; it awards me the opportunity to go outside the wire, so I'm able to actually hand out all this stuff and plan deliveries.”
Overall, volunteers sorted and packed donations such as toys and school supplies into boxes to send to the IA, IP and U.S. forces to distribute among Iraqi children and families. “We’ve already sent out 9,000 pounds,” said Haltom. “Today we are sending out 5,000 pounds of children’s items. We have 4 more missions on deck, and we have a request for 12,000 pounds of items. It’s not just 12,000 pounds of items to just indiscriminately hand out; it's these children’s items that will support all of our mission sets.”
Haltom emphasized the impact KoI is having on his Airmen and Iraqi Soldiers alike. “All items will be strategically used across the country to support our warfighters outside the wire, specifically our servicemembers working in direct support of the IA and IP. Under Saddam Hussein, the IA and the IP were used improperly. Now, they're trying to change the perception. The IA and the IP are here to serve and protect the citizens of this country,” he concluded. “The faster they’re successfully stood-up and self-sustaining, the better.”
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Blackanthem Military News
Rolling with new technology
By Staff Sgt. Liesl Marelli, Colorado Army National Guard
Sgt. 1st Class Christina Sepulveda watches the video camera images projected on her screen to see if the Soldiers inside the vehicle are ready to begin rollover training. The intercom she uses allows her and the Soldiers to communicate while going through the training. Sepulveda said she watches the screen and listens to what's going on inside the vehicle to ensure the Soldiers train safely. From this angle the Soldiers hang upside down suspended by their seatbelts, as the foam pads simulating ammunition cans, water bottles and weapons bounce around the vehicle.
FORT CARSON, COLORADO SPRINGS, CO. - It's a typical day in Iraq for 4 Colorado Guardsmen. They know their task, which is the same as always - conduct convoy ops. They are about 4 hours into their mission; a mission they've run before, but today there is an abandoned vehicle where one hasn't been before. The driver hones in on it, the truck cmdr discusses it on the radio, the gunner watches his sector of fire looking for suspicious activity, and the 2 other Soldiers scan endlessly for signs of IEDs out of their windows.
The driver knows this route inside and out, but the vehicle distracts him. He intensely focuses on the car and forgets about the bend in the road. Suddenly, their Humvee careens off the dirt road and starts tumbling down a hill. "Rollover! Rollover! Rollover!" shout the troops in the vehicle. Training sets in. The gunner braces himself, the Soldiers grab onto the gunner, and they all brace for impact. The Soldiers, shaken and slightly injured, survive thanks to realistic vehicle rollover training they went through before deploying - HEAT training.
Although this scenario is fictitious, it's not an impossibility for Soldiers, including the soon-to-be-deploying Soldiers of HHB, 3rd Bn, 157th FA, Colorado Army National Guard. Beginning in 2006, the military launched a new way to train Soldiers how to survive a vehicle rollover. "Are we ready?" asks Sgt. 1st Class Christina Sepulveda, a member of the Colorado National Guard's Pre-Mobilization Training Assistance Element, who is about to engage the switches to initiate a vehicle rollover for Soldiers assigned to HHB. "Let's roll!" shouts a Soldier from inside the vehicle. With that, Sepulveda adjusts the switches, and the vehicle begins rotating. At first it's just a slight angle - only 25 degrees. Then she rotates it to 30 degrees. The Soldiers are relatively quiet inside the vehicle until she begins rolling the vehicle. "Rollover! Rollover! Rollover!" shout the 4 Soldiers in the vehicle. Suspended by their seatbelts, Sepulveda leaves the vehicle at 180 degrees after doing a few 360 rotations.
"We spin them to disorient them and to get them accustomed to what it feels like to hang by their seatbelt," she said.
Over the intercom the Soldiers grunt and ask each other if they are ok. Sepulveda gives the verbal command, "Egress." With that, the Soldiers conduct a land egress. They must determine which doors still properly function, help one another egress and pull security once out of the vehicle. After the Soldiers successfully conduct a water egress, their training is complete.
"It was great training," said SSgt. Marion Jackson. "It gave me a different view about vehicle rollover and how you have to work together as a team to escape the vehicle in water and dry land." All Soldiers assigned to 3rd Bn, 157th FA are required to successfully conduct the vehicle rollover training prior to deploying to Iraq later this year.
Soldiers watch as 4 of their peers experience the HEAT.
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Army Corps of Engineers in Iraq focuses on future
By Nicole Dalrymple
Gulf Region Division
BAGHDAD – With more than 4,400 projects completed, and many major reconstruction programs of the Gulf Region Division (GRD), USACE in Iraq, concluding, GRD’s Ops, Maintenance and Sust. (OMS) program is gaining ground and increased significance.
The OMS program is aimed at supporting the U.S. Embassy’s goals to ensure the GoI and the Iraqi people are properly prepared to operate and maintain the country’s new infrastructure, and assume responsibility for the nation’s continued reconstruction.
The focus began to morph in the third quarter of fiscal year 2008, according to Steve Rivera, deputy of GRD’s reconstruction div. “We began to see indications that focus was moving away from brick and mortar construction and towards training initiatives. We saw this reinforced when Ambassador Crocker and Gen. Petraeus, testified in front of Congress, April 8, 2008” he said. In his remarks, Ambassador Crocker stated, “As Iraq is now earning the financial resources it needs for bricks and mortar construction through oil production and export, our focus has shifted to capacity development…. The era of U.S. funded major infrastructure projects is over. We are seeking to ensure that our assistance, in partnership with the Iraqis, leverages Iraq’s own resources.” Capacity development is a phrase commonly used to explain efforts to train, equip and develop the Iraqi workforce into an entity that can ultimately be self sufficient.
Maj. Gen. Michael R. Eyre, cmdr of GRD, has described 2009 as an “historic year for us all as we look ahead to closing out major projects and programs, and turn more and more over to the GoI.”
“For every facility that GRD completes there's a letter of acceptability signed by the GoI,” Rivera explained. “Included in that agreement is a letter of sustainability, where the GoI agrees to take responsibility of ops and maintenance (O&M). That willingness to take responsibility for O&M is part of the cost-sharing agreement between Iraq and the U.S.”
To assist in this transfer of responsibility, GRD has a robust OMS program to help set the Iraqis up for success, Rivera explained. Within every essential services sector GRD has worked, O&M training has been provided in some form to ensure users know how to operate and care for the equipment and facilities entrusted to them. Staffing properly for the O&M of completed facilities will produce thousands of jobs for Iraqis, Rivera added. He estimates that for every worker who helped build a project, 3 people will be employed by the project whether through working on site, providing supplies, doing maintenance or providing cleaning service.
“There is so much potential for Iraqi contractors who want to develop their skills in facilities-focused engineering services, such as HVAC [heating, ventilation and air conditioning], low voltage electrical, mechanical systems and facilities mgt support,” Rivera added.
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Multi-National Security Transition Command – Iraq
Public Affairs Office, Phoenix Base
APO AE 09348
Hundreds Graduate From Iraqi Warfighter Training Course
By Van N. Williams
KIRKUK – More than 600 IA soldiers graduated from an intense month long Bn Collective Training, or Warfighter training at the K1 Regional Training Center, March 12, 2009.
According to IA Staff Lt. Gen. Husayn Dohi, dep. chief of staff for training, the soldiers received small and intermediate weapons training, IED awareness and prevention training, and check point procedures training. The bn also practiced patrolling in a MOUT (Military Ops on Urban Terrain), that simulated a village with homes and a hospital. The soldiers also had ethics training. “Good training without values is not good. You become an army of criminals and the people don’t respect you,” Husayn told his officers.
The Warfighter training course will be taught to IA soldiers that will bring a single standard of professionalism to the army, according to U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Steven Salazar, dep. comm. gen., MNSTC-I – Iraq Joint HQ Army Advisory Training Team. Speaking during a briefing with senior Iraqi and CF officers, Salazar reminded the group that, “The training is hard. It’s supposed to be hard; you're supposed to get dirty. We’re not here to make it easy. We’re here to train soldiers.” Husayn agreed, and quoted an old Iraqi saying, “Follow the man who makes you cry, not the man who makes you laugh, and you will be stronger for it.”
This training has become part of the continuous rebuilding effort of the IA to professionalize itself through use of realistic events. Warfighter training is one more vital step towards ensuring Iraq’s self-sufficiency.
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Multi-National Security Transition Command – Iraq
Public Affairs Office, Phoenix Base
APO AE 09348
IA’s General Transportation Regiment Conducts First Port to Depot Mission
UMM QUASAR - The IA Gen. Transportation Regt. (GTR) achieved a major milestone by completing its first port to depot mission. The GTR transported Serbian equipment, consisting of body armor and plates, from the Port of Umm Quasar to Taji National Depot, March 09. This is the first time the GTR has utilized elements from 3 or more cos. The mission entailed 42 vehicles, to including a security element. This convoy signals the completion of one of the two main missions required of the GTR.
Iraqi Col. Mohammed, Cmdr, said, “This is a great day for the IA and a great day for the GTR!" US Army Lt Col Paul Scheidler, RSG Senior Advisor added, “This move is important since it demonstrates one capability of the two main GTR missions.”
The GTR stood up in September 2008. The establishment of the GTR is critical to the foundation of a viable distribution system throughout Iraq. The GTR will enable the flow of supplies from ports to depots, 4th line support, and from depots to location commands, 3rd line support, for further distribution to the Divs and below.
The movement of the first port to depot mission demonstrated the GTR’s growing competency, by validating its capability of providing 4th line support.
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Iraqis Work Closely With National Guard Engineers
Photos by Capt. Maggie White
Capt. Phil Benner, asst bde engr for 56th Stryker BCT, 28th ID, looks on as Ibrahim Karim, a bilateral bicultural advisor, explains what needs to be fixed at the Al Tabi Compact Water Treatment Unit near Tarmiyah, March 9. The bilateral bicultural advisors are Iraqi engrs who work with the 56th SBCT engrs to facilitate the labor between US forces and the Iraqi ministries.
Capt. Benner points out to a Soldier about what needs to be done to make a pump operational at the Khark Water Treatment Plant south of Tarmiyah. The plant services much of the greater Baghdad areas.
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TF Troy disposes of thousands of pounds of explosives found by the ISF
BAGHDAD - The IA requested the help of a CF EOD team to destroy a large quantity of homemade explosives; various types of munitions; an IED and IED-making materials that were found and relocated by Iraqi forces to COP Kemple in Baghdad over the last month.
On March 12, members of Team 4, Joint TF Troy were called in to assess the newest addition to and dispose of the store of cache finds. It took 2 days to completely destroy the approx. 6,000 pounds of HME, 1,000 primers, 600 blasting caps, 26 grenades, 25 rounds of ordnance, and the IED.
Pictured are some of the various munitions that were found and secured by the IA.
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Tribal Engagement - Afghanistan
Photos by Lance Cpl. Brian D. Jones
An Afghan NA soldier shakes the hand of a young boy during a tribal engagement, Feb. 20. The tribal engagement was conducted by the ANA and Marines with 3rd Civil Affairs Group, Special Purpose Marine Air Ground TF (SPMAGTF-A), in an effort to build relationships within communities in southern Afghanistan. Close relationships with the Afghan people help build a stronger economy, and a more capable govt. By planning and executing joint ops with the Afghan national SF, SPMAGTF-A strengthens the ability of the Govt of Afghanistan to protect and provide for its people.
Afghan children run to an Afghan NA soldier as he hands out candy.
Cpl. Aldo J. Almazan (left) and Sgt. Christopher Arensdorff enjoy some downtime at FOB Delaram before heading out to a tribal engagement.
Sgt. Arensdorff speaks with an Afghan NA soldier.
Sgt. Jesus O. Luna (3rd from left) and Sgt. Arensdorff (2nd from right) sit and speak with an Afghan man about the needs of his community. Luna and Arensdorff are civil affairs NCOs.
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